Conversations

Latest Episodes:

Meaghan's connections to family, town and country Sep 28, 2023

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Meaghan Katrak Harris with stories from her life as a teenage mother and raising a multicultural family, and her working life as a social worker and an academic

Xanthe Mallett on skeletons, forensics, crime and body farms Sep 27, 2023

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Forensic scientist Dr Xanthe Mallett on her work analysing skeletal remains, investigating cases of wrongful conviction and studying the decomposition of the human body (CW: contains references to death and crime)

Xanthe is a forensic anthropologist, criminologist and author who works with police to analyse skeletal remains.

Xanthe worked for years at Scotland's Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification in Dundee, and presented her research in facial identification to the FBI in Quantico.

She also looks at cases of wrongful conviction, including mothers falsely accused of killing their children, with specific reference to the wrongful convictions of Lindy Chamberlain and Kathleen Folbigg.

Currently Xanthe spends some of her working life at a taphonomy facility outside Sydney studying the details of human bodily decomposition.

Further information

Learn more about the Forensic Taphonomy facility run by UTS

To binge even more great episodes of the ‘Conversations podcast’ with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, singers, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

Seeing the world through a dog's eyes Sep 26, 2023

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Dog behaviourist Laura Vissaritis uses science and psychology to better understand what our dogs really are telling us

Dynasties and dynamism Sep 25, 2023

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Nicholas Jose was living in China in 1989, when the military was sent in to violently quell pro-democracy rallies in Tiananmen Square. He left Beijing the next day and returned to a changed city

Sam Neill's menagerie Sep 22, 2023

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Sam Neill is a winemaker, a cancer survivor and a father. He's also an actor, who's made more than 100 films

Smuggled to Antarctica Sep 21, 2023

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Rachael Mead with the true story of Nel Law, who stowed away on a Danish ship in 1961 to become the first Australian woman to set foot on Antarctica

The echidna argument Sep 20, 2023

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Strategic analyst Sam Roggeveen says Australia needs to think more like an echidna when it comes to defence

Living to 120 and beyond Sep 19, 2023

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Dr David Sinclair is a longevity expert who believes ageing is a treatable disease (R)

What happens to us while we're under anaesthesia? Sep 18, 2023

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Kate Cole-Adams has discovered what happens to us while we dwell in the chemical oblivion of general anaesthetic (R)

Chadden's planet Earth Sep 14, 2023

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Chadden Hunter was in his twenties when he found himself sitting around a campfire in the Ethiopian highlands, talking about his PhD thesis with Sir David Attenborough. The meeting changed his life

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